Missing
by kl999
Summary: Let me tell you that I love you one more time.


Here we go! Another one!

Disclaimer: not mine

Casey couldn't help the unpleasant feeling that rose in the back of her throat as her daughter got out of the car.

"Bye, Mom," Brittany said, the anger still present in her voice.

Casey's mind thought of an excuse to keep her there. "Wait, Brit! Did you get your lunch?"

Brittany rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's in my backpack. Can I leave yet?"

"What about your poster?"

"Got it! Mom, I'm going to be late!" Brittany started to walk off.

"Well, have a good day at school!" Casey called to her. Brittany didn't even turn around. Casey let out a sigh as she drove out of the carpool line.

She couldn't shake the strange feeling as she drove home. Her stomach kept tying itself into knots and her hands were fluttering. She kept one hand on the wheel as she kneaded her forehead with the other. For some reason, she wished Brittany didn't have school today.

Which was strange. She never got like this when she took Brittany to school. And she shouldn't be feeling like this after the fight they had had on the way over. Casey had said something, and Brittany had responded in the typical pre-teenage thirteen-year old attitude that she had been especially good at lately. Casey had gotten irritated and corrected her, and it had turned into a fight.

But instead of feeling annoyed, Casey felt…loss. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and focused on driving home.

……….

Casey, who was in the middle of doing laundry, checked her watch for the hundredth time that hour. _When was Brittany getting home?_

_She got out of school at three. It took her about fifteen minutes to walk home from the school. Sometimes she'd stop and chat with friends. Then it would take her about thirty minutes. _

She glanced at the clock. It read 3:40. Brittany should be home by now. Casey tried to calm her "mothers' nerves", but it was no use. But it was also too terrifying to let her mind wander. She picked up the phone.

She thought briefly about calling Brittany's father, then wondered why the thought had even crossed her mind. She laughed out loud. With his _new family, _Greg was surely too busy. He was too busy to even want joint custody of his own daughter. _What a joke._

Then she dialed a number without thinking. A familiar voice answered. "Hey, Casey," it greeted warmly.

"Derek, hey. What are you doing?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Um, nothing, actually. What are you up to?" he replied genially.

"Do you want to come over and have some coffee? I was just waiting for Brittany to come home and kind of didn't have anything better to do."

"Sure," he said. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah. It's fine, I just haven't seen you in awhile and I thought you'd be interested in coming over. Unless your busy?"

"No, it's no problem. I'll be over in a few."

The phone clicked and she put hers back on the base. A slight feeling of relief washed over her as she realized Derek was coming over. For some reason, she wanted him close if anything happened.

Shaking her head, she laughed again. _Casey, you're being paranoid. Nothing's going to happen. What's gotten into you? You used to be so rational, so…not like this._

But that was before she had Brittany. Rationality seemed to fly out the window when you had a child, Casey realized.

She returned to her laundry and worked at it for a little while before she heard the front door open. "Casey?" Derek called.

He stepped into the bedroom, where she was neck deep in dirty clothes. "Um, did I miss the memo?" he asked jokingly. "I thought you weren't busy." His tone held nothing but amusement.

Casey ran her fingers through her hair and blew out through her nose. "Yeah, I'll make some coffee, hold on a sec," she said, distracted.

Derek frowned and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You sure everything's fine?" he asked, the concern in his voice barely hidden.

After they had graduated and moved out and Casey and Derek weren't living with each other, they had grown quite close. They had ended up living in the same suburb of New York by coincidence, and most nights Derek was over helping with something. Casey thought of how helpful he had been in raising Brittany. She was certain she wouldn't have been able to do it alone.

So from stepsiblings who couldn't stand each other they formed a surprising sort of family, Casey and Brittany as mother and daughter with Derek as some pseudo-uncle/brother/friend figure. It was strange, how life had turned out.

"Casey?" Derek asked again, breaking her out of her reverie. "You okay?"

It seemed to trigger something in Casey. Her words tumbled out of her in a rush. "Well, Brittany and I had a fight this morning, and I dropped her off to school but I really just wanted to keep her home. _From school_. But I didn't, and now it's four and she's not home. And I'm freaking out just a little bit."

Derek thought for a bit and then said, "Have you called the school to see if she's staying after for something?"

Casey almost fell to her knees with relief. Of course. She was probably staying after to makeup a test or get tutoring or _something. _The answer had been so obvious she had missed it.

She grinned ruefully, the mild panic subsiding as quickly as it came. "No, I guess I forgot to do that. Make yourself comfortable, I'm going to go find the number."

Casey hummed as she searched her drawers for the number to Brittany's school. She felt stupid for not thinking of this earlier. All of her fright from earlier seemed silly and uncalled for.

Dialing the number, she got the receptionist. "Hello?" the woman asked.

"Hi, my name is Casey MacDonald, and I was calling to check if my daughter, Brittany, was still at the school?"

"I'll make an announcement, ma'am, and then I'll call you back when she gets to the office."

"Okay, thanks so much!" Casey hung up the phone cheerfully. "She's probably at school. They said they'd call when she _moseyed_ into the office," she called to Derek.

"That's good," he said, entering the room. "Now, what about that coffee? That _is _the reason I came over here."

Casey put a pot on and the two sat down at the table, catching up. It had been some time since she had last seen Derek and she had missed him (not that she was ever tell him that!) She asked about the family. George and Nora were still at the house. Right now they were taking a big cruise vacation to the Mediterranean. Edwin and Lizzie were doing fine in their respective lives. Both were married and had kids. Edwin had two and Lizzie had three. Casey knew it was a joke in the family that the middle children had settled down before the older two.

_But it's not due to lack of trying on my part, _she thought wryly. She had been with Greg for six years when he up and left. He had been seeing another woman and she had become pregnant with his child. Brittany was only five at the time. Greg had said that he had fallen out of love with her, that it wouldn't be fair to her to stay in this relationship because he couldn't give her the love she deserved.

She thought it was a nice way for him to make a clean break and still emerge from the ordeal with his conscience unscathed.

Derek had been serial dating for years but nothing of importance had come out of it. She smiled inwardly. If there was a man more afraid of commitment than Derek, she had yet to see him.

And finally, Marti was in a fast paced career with an equally fast paced love life. She was fresh out of college, brilliant, and beautiful. She had every opportunity in life. Casey briefly thought back to when her life was like that. It had been fun, yes, but then Brittany had come along and Casey was forced to give it all up.

Brittany hadn't been planned. It was Greg's, of course, and when he had found out, he set out to "make an honest woman out of her" and married her in a shotgun wedding in Vegas. The whole thing seemed very un-Caseylike, looking back, but she had been young and in love. It made sense at the time…

_Famous last words. _

Casey lost track of time while they were talking. Before she knew it, the phone was ringing again. She checked the clock and saw that thirty minutes had passed since she had first phone the school. She picked up the phone, barely stifling a laugh as Derek related a particularly funny moment when Nora had tried to set traps for the rabbits in the yard but only successfully catching George.

"Hello?" she answered, still smiling.

"Ms. MacDonald? This is the school calling. I made an announcement for your daughter to come to the office and no one showed up. I waited twenty minutes, and then I went to her last period class. Her teacher says he was certain he saw her leave the school. He watched her."

"Um," Casey was confused. This was not the reply she had been expecting. "Where is she?" she asked dumbly.

"Ma'am, you could try calling some of her friends parents, seeing if she's over at one of their houses," the receptionist said patiently. Her voice was too calm, almost like she was delivering bad news. "But she's not at the school. I can make another announcement, if you want. And the school stays open until six. We'll let you know if we see her, but there's not much we can do."

_Oh my god. _"Okay, thanks for everything." She kept her voice from trembling until she hung up the phone.

Derek looked at her, silently questioning. She pressed her lips tightly together and waved a hand airily in his direction. "She's not at the school – but she's probably at Molly or Brooke's house and she just forgot to call me. I'm going to call their parents." She walked out of the kitchen to find the address book again. Her hands were shaking as they flipped the pages.

Casey falsely put on a cheerful voice and called into the kitchen. "I swear, she is going to be in so much trouble when she gets home! No computer for a month!"

She reached Molly's mother, who said that no, Brittany hadn't been with Molly when she came home nearly an hour ago. She said she would keep an eye out, though. Casey made another joking comment about wanting to kill Brittany and then hung up. Taking a deep breath, she found Brooke's mother's number and dialed it. She received a similar response.

Casey tried a few more of Brittany's less close friends, hoping against anything that she would be there. The same panic that had been present earlier showed up again. Her throat tightened after each phone call. The mothers all had the same unhelpful, pitying tones in their voice when they told her that no, Brittany hadn't been there and yes, they would call her if she showed up. Casey hated all of them.

She was close to losing it altogether. She flipped furiously through her phone book, looking for anyone who might have a clue where Brittany had gone through. Casey's eyes burned, but she blinked rapidly, determined to stay focused on the task at hand. Searching through her drawers she found another, older address book. This one was from before they even moved to New York, and Casey knew there wasn't gong to be anyone in it.

She scanned the names anyway. They were people she hadn't talked to in years, some from when she and Greg had been married. Half of them lived in Canada.

Casey put the address book back in the drawer, slowly, meticulously arranging it like it had been. She heard Derek enter the room and softly clear his throat. How long had she been on the phone? She continued to rummage in the drawer, pretending to search for something.

"Casey."

She cringed. _What are you going to say, Derek? I don't need this right now._

"What can I do to help?"

Casey let out a sigh. Derek was good. Derek always knew what to say.

………

Well, there it is. I'm actually really nervous about this one. What do you think? Kind of a start, I guess. Haha well I was SHOCKED to see the response to "I Can Hear the Bells". You guys are _truly_ amazing! LOVE YOU ALL! PEACEEE!


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